Bildungsaspirationen verstehen: Subjektive Narrative als Ausgangspunkt für Weiterbildungsentscheidungen

For many decades, both practitioners and scholars of adult education have wondered about the reasons why adults do - or do not - participate in adult and continuing education programs. We assume that even in adulthood people are willing to acquiring knowledge throughout life and to further developing one's own skills and competencies. These learning processes are taking place in diverse forms: they are of  informal or formal nature, they are being shaped independently and individually, or they taking place within the framework of organized continuing education.

People aspire to learn in order to expand their personal, professional or social ability to act, to change or to improve their life perspectives or they want to expand and deepen their personal knowledge. However, various context-dependent factors can impede or prevent participation in organized adult education: On the one hand external conditions such as time and space, supply and demand, organizational and structural circumstances and conditions of the continuing education system, educational policy frameworks, etc. play an important role. On the other hand, individual (learning) interests, needs and educational ambitions of the adressed individuals and participants play a major role. All of these factors influence the willingness of the individual to participate in organized forms of adult and continuing education.

The aim of the project is to investigate, how subjective reasons and biographical developments as well as objective environmental conditions affect participation in adult education or lifelong learning. In biographically narrated learning stories participants and non-participants are asked to share and express their interests, needs, attitudes and resistances with regarding further education and lifelong learning. These learning stories are going to be analysed in order better understand subjective reasoning concerning lifelong learning . To do so, we will use a social space-oriented approach in different quarters/neighborhoods of Hamburg.

The project pursues two central research questions:

• What is the significance of subjective learning narratives in the context of individual decisions regarding learning and participating in adult and continuing education?
• What insights and strategies for reaching so far underrepresented groups in continuing education can be deducted and what kind of strategies can be developed and implemented in order to support marginalized target groups?

To answer these questions, explorative narrative interviews will be carried out with participants and non-participants concerning adult education and liefelong learning. In addition, problem-centered interviews with experts from adult education practice and counselling will be conducted. Using an action-research approach, practitioners, interested interview participants, and the researchers will come together in workshops in order to exchange ideas about possibilities of approach, participant-oriented learning formats as well as subject-oriented learning guidance and support. At the end of the project, two research workshops with interviewees, experts and researchers will be held in order to develop a manual for adult education institutions and counselling services about how to best address marginalized target groups.

The research project will cooperate closely with various adult education providers as well as with community centers, district offices, social welfare centers and other institutions established in the respective social areas.

Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen werden explorativ-narrative Interviews mit Teilnehmenden und Nichtteilnehmenden an Weiterbildung durchgeführt sowie problemzentrierte Interviews mit Expert:innen aus der Weiterbildungspraxis und -beratung. In Gesprächswerkstätten werden Praktiker:innen und interessierte Interviewteilnehmende zusammenkommen, um sich über Möglichkeiten der Ansprache, teilnehmerorientierte Angebotsformate sowie subjektorientierte Lernberatung und -begleitung auszutauschen. In zwei Forschungswerkstätten mit Befragten, Expert:innen und Forscherinnen soll zum Abschluss des Projektes eine praxisbezogene Handreichung für Weiterbildungseinrichtungen und Beratungseinrichtungen entwickelt werden.

Das Forschungsprojekt wird eng mit verschiedenen Träger:innen der Erwachsenenbildung sowie mit Bürgerhäusern, Stadtteilbüros, Sozialstationen oder weiteren in den jeweiligen Sozialräumen etablierten Einrichtungen kooperieren.